yoga for snow shoveling

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    Thinking About Restoratives! (Web Version of E-Mailing)

    ByElizabeth

    Dear Friends,

    Not long after the slush from last night melted in the early afternoon rain, the precipitation falling had started turning into the dreaded wintry mix.  Thunder clapped and the sky was dark, and I have been mighty grateful all day that I was able to work from my warm home.  It is all snow now — quite beautiful.  It is inevitable that I will be out shoveling early tomorrow morning, though whether it will be three or four inches or 8-10 remains to be seen.  It will be heavy underneath.  This is a wet snow.  I will be following my own advice on yoga alignment for snow shoveling (that appeared in December 2010’s edition of Yoga Journal).

    It is on nights like this that I find myself planning a good restorative practice.  What could be better after a dark storm and some heavy duty shoveling to surrender to the blissful support of blankets and bolsters, find the sweetness of your breath, shift into optimal alignment, and find a space of deep relaxation.  If this sounds like a dream come true or you want to know what is all the fuss about restoratives, you are in luck.  This coming Saturday, is the first of the winter session series of restorative workshops with me at Willow Street Yoga:

    Relaxing into Optimal Alignment with Anusara Restoratives, Saturdays, January 29, February 26, and March 26, 2:30-4:30p, Willow Street Yoga Center, Takoma Park, $30 each (All 3 Saturdays = $75)
    After a little gentle stretching and self-massage to bring awareness to the breath and body, we will enjoy the exquisite application of Anusara’s® Universal Principles of Alignment to restful and supported restorative postures to release old patterns and invite in the new to find greater ease of body and mind.  A great workshop and practice for all levels; sign up for the full three-class series and save $15!

    Be safe, stay warm, enjoy being snowed in for now if you can, practice gratitude for being able to be snowed in, and delight in dreaming about how wonderful it will be to go on a mini-in town treat of a retreat with two hours of restorative yoga.  Hope to see you.

    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

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    An Example of How One Door Closing Opened Another (and Article in Yoga Journal)

    ByElizabeth

    I think snow can be beautiful and enjoy the hush when it first falls, but it’s not my favorite thing, which was one of the reasons I settled this far south (yes, DC is pretty far south for a native New Yorker).  Last winter with its record snow falls felt at times as a seemingly endless exercise in looking for the good and trying to respond in the highest.  Among other fallout of the snow, the February blizzard grounded my flight to San Francisco where I was supposed to go to celebrate the start of John Friend’s 2010 workshop schedule and to visit friends.  Instead, I was home shoveling.  With the arthritis in my spine and some other old injuries to groin and shoulder, I had to be extra careful with my alignment so that shoveling could be an enjoyable work out instead of a dreary and potentially debilitating task that I was doing instead of playing with friends and yogis in San Francisco.  Being grounded at home and needing to be in alignment with the shoveling, led me to blog about Anusara alignment for snow shoveling.  Putting this advice out there led to an editor at Yoga Journal discovering my blog and interviewing me for a short article that (I haven’t seen it yet–waiting for my copy to arrive in the mail, but a friend who was reading the most recent edition at Willow Street’s Silver Spring studio gave me the heads up last night) is in December’s magazine (page 22).

    While missing out on a vacation due to weather is not exactly a momentous disappointment or life challenge, this story is an example of how we never know what life is going to bring our way.  We cannot choose what life gives us, but we can choose how we respond, and how we respond will change how the path unfolds.  I persist in the yoga and meditation and share my teachings and experiences because it has been so helpful in opening my perspective and finding more delight and opportunity in life.  In that regard, one of the reasons I challenge myself on the mat, inviting myself into places of discomfort and effort and staying with them until I find ease and even delight, is to help me be able to see the good and to respond in the healthiest and most optimal way on and off the mat.  While I love sometimes just to do the easeful poses, what has brought more strength and joy to all of my life is going deep into the hard places and staying with them.